Jessica Rules the Dark Side

By: Beth Fantaskey

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren, Jennifer Ikeda, Jeff Woodman

In this sequel to the breakout hit Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, Jessica Packwood finds being a newly married teenage vampire princess isn’t all that easy. She might be living in a Romanian castle with her husband Lucius Vladescu, but she’s also surrounded by undead subjects who aren’t ready to welcome her as queen. Then Lucius is accused of murdering a vampire Elder, leaving Jessica more alone than ever. Now she must race against time to clear Lucius’ name and save both their lives, even if it means enlisting the help of those she knows are keeping dark secrets.

©2012 Beth Fantaskey (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC

Ahhh

My favorite series. I know this came out in 2012 but I still cross my fingers for a third book.

Very Good Sequel!

Jess and Lucius won me over in the first book (Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side). I found this to be a very good sequel and came to enjoy their story and appreciate the characters even more so in this book, even though all the events were not happy or lighthearted. Yes, Jessica was quite overwhelmed and insecure at the beginning of this story, but she has reason to be. At a young age she finds herself married and living in a completely different world from all that she has known growing up. But the point of the story is how she grows and overcomes that, rising to the occasion when times get tough. (Yes, with a bit of help from friends). I enjoyed Mindy and Ronero also, and felt they added quite a lot to the story. I find the writing is excellent, and quite compelling. I feel it flowed along nicely and I was able to follow the alternating points of view with the characters without any problem. I enjoy this author and her unique style. She takes a different approach and I find it interesting (and refreshing) how she chooses to potray the relationship between two young people with no real "love" scenes, scarcely including even a couple of "kissing" scenes or even mentions of kissing...The one closest to a "love" scene is only Jessica remembering their wedding night...for me the author made this a very poignant scene while including virtually no physical detail. (And I don't mean explicit detail, but only the kind of detail one usually finds in most YA or mainstream books). Yet she manages to make it touching and convincing. She relies on the characters themselves and the narrative of all the other events to really carry the story. It seems to me that is a true talent. I thinks the narration was good, and some of the accents were even just a bit more natural sounding than in the first book.

wow

I love this book so much is there gonna be a next one? hope so

I don't know why I bought it

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Was interesting listening the book. In some moments was good listening the book. Make the time gp faster;

Would you be willing to try another book from Beth Fantaskey? Why or why not?

Probably no. In my opinion, her books are too childish and very Young tens.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, in first place because i don't like to see movies of books that I read, and second because would be (in this case) a waste of my time.

Not as Good as the First!

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

I fell in love reading the first book. I was curious about after the marriage. There were definitely some slow parts, which maybe would have allowed it to be a better movie by cutting those parts out. Also, the narration was pretty awful. That was definitely the worst part for me. It was almost like cheap dinner theater pretending to be Dracula bad.

More Like "Jessica Cowers in Fear of the Darkside"

I waited for this release like almost two years and I am so sorry to say that it was not worth the wait. Jessica's character was nervous and insecure throughout the book. The plot would have been decent had the foreshadowing not been sooo overt - I knew the who and why less than halfway through the book. The narration was excellent but not even that could earn this book more than 3 stars. Truth be told the shallow character, Mindy, was enough to knock off a whole star.

Very Good Sequel!

Jess and Lucius won me over in the first book (Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side). I found this to be a very good sequel and came to enjoy their story and appreciate the characters even more so in this book, even though all the events were not happy or lighthearted. Yes, Jessica was quite overwhelmed and insecure at the beginning of this story, but she has reason to be. At a young age she finds herself married and living in a completely different world from all that she has known growing up. But the point of the story is how she grows and overcomes that, rising to the occasion when times get tough. (Yes, with a bit of help from friends). I enjoyed Mindy and Ronero also, and felt they added quite a lot to the story. I find the writing is excellent, and quite compelling. I feel it flowed along nicely and I was able to follow the alternating points of view with the characters without any problem. I enjoy this author and her unique style. She takes a different approach and I find it interesting (and refreshing) how she chooses to potray the relationship between two young people with no real "love" scenes, scarcely including even a couple of "kissing" scenes or even mentions of kissing...The one closest to a "love" scene is only Jessica remembering their wedding night...for me the author made this a very poignant scene while including virtually no physical detail. (And I don't mean explicit detail, but only the kind of detail one usually finds in most YA or mainstream books). Yet she manages to make it touching and convincing. She relies on the characters themselves and the narrative of all the other events to really carry the story. It seems to me that is a true talent. I thinks the narration was good, and some of the accents were even just a bit more natural sounding than in the first book.

I Started Off Hating it but Loved the Last Half

I liked the first of this series. It was light, fluffy and fun and had a good ending with a couple of sweet romances. I was hoping for a solid start to this book and was disappointed to find that math genius and pitch fork tossing Jessica had digressed into a silly, scared little girl who apparently couldn't even decide what to eat on a daily basis. I wanted to hit her over the head with something. Fortunately Lucius was on the job and I was very interested in his sweet way of handling the formerly courageous girl he loved who had turned into a quivering mess. I held out hope and was quickly getting fed up and almost quit on the book when a variety of other characters, an interesting plot development and a push in the right direction for Jessica kept me listening. I was glad I did. This isn't high literature but it was fun and sweet and the ending became worth all the frustration at the beginning. Katherine Kellgren's readings along with a few other narrators made this a great listen that I will listen to again now that I am not stewing in frustration.

meh.

I wanted to know the ending that why i finished the this book. but other than that, nothing special about it.. There's not much elaboration about the immortal characters. No mind blowing facts everything was very unoriginal. Like they can be killed with a stake but they don't sparkle! Lol they store blood in sellars and they're apparently good when aged! 😂😂 anyways, I feel like I totally wasted my credit for this one.

From sassy to mousy -and i havent even finished it

*Disclaimer- I have NOT finished reading this book- only on Chapter 50*

The fact that I haven't finished this book and felt the need to review it already. This is so frustrating. I LOVED the first book. I was so excited to see what would happen further into the story.

First off, the narration for Jessica is SO TERRIBLE it makes me want to skip all her parts. (the author decided to do different points of view.) It is SO OVER THE TOP dramatic its actually distracting from the story. I found myself hoping that her parts would end and that we could finally switch POV to Mindy or ANYONE ELSE. I do have to say that I did love the narration of Mindy. In my opinion, Jennifer Ikeda is one of the best narrators on audible.

Second, everything you love about Jessica as the main character- forget it. Gone is the funny, independent, sure-footed Jess that I loved from the first book. She become so WHINY and ANNOYING. (I feel very strongly about this because its rare that as a reader I can actually identify with a protagonist. I loved that Jessica wasn't this skinny, size 2, golden haired, supermodel. She specifically said in the first book that she is a size 10). The girl who flew across the world to confront her vampire fiancé is gone, at least that's what it looks like so far. She literally cant handle ordering food by herself. Her c-dependency on Luc is sad and unhealthy.

Third, I feels like we jumped way ahead. The book literally opens with Jess and Luc married. We don't get to live the wedding and all that with them. They allude to those parts as the story goes on but it honestly feels like we are missing really important parts as readers.

Basically, I honestly felt I was reading a totally different story, with totally different characters. if it wasn't for the name I would doubt that its the sequel to a great first book.

The good parts so far: Mindy and her boo.


I just hope that the rest of the book makes up for it.